Clinical educators' experiences of facilitating learning when speaking a different language from both the student and...

Worldwide there is an increasing responsibility for clinical educators to help students from different language backgrounds to develop the necessary skills to provide health care services to a linguistically diverse client base. This study describes the experiences of clinical educators who facilitate learning in contexts where they are not familiar with the language spoken between students and their clients. A part of the qualitative component of a larger mixed methods study is the focus of this paper. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight participants recruited from all audiology university programmes in South Africa. Thematic analysis allowed for an in depth exploration of the research question. Member checking was used to enhance credibility. It is hoped that the findings will inform training programmes and in so doing, optimize the learning of diverse students who may better be able to provide appropriate services to the linguistically diverse population they serve.

Participants experienced challenges with fair assessment of students and with ensuring appropriate client care when they were unable to speak the language shared between the client and the student. In the absence of formal guidelines, clinical educators developed unique coping strategies that they used on a case-by-case basis to assess students and ensure adequate client management when they experienced such language barriers while supervising. Coping strategies included engaging other students as interpreters, having students role-play parts of a session in English in advance and requesting real-time translations from the student during the session. They expressed concern about the fairness and efficacy of the coping strategies used.

While clinical educators use unique strategies to assess students and to ensure suitable client care, dilemmas remain regarding the fairness of assessment and the ability to ensure the quality of client care.